It Investment Value INTEL BVI
It Investment Value INTEL BVI
It Investment Value INTEL BVI
Managing IT Investments
Intel's IT Business Value metrics
program
August 2003
Introduction
IT investments are growing more complex, more strategic, and larger in scope. At the same time,
traditional financial and accounting measures often fail to properly quantify the business benefits of
those investments. Intel IT strives to invest in projects that bring both business value and IT
efficiency, and are also financially attractive. To prove such bottom-line results, we developed the IT
Business Value (ITBV) program at the end of 2001 to forecast the real value of an IT project and
document the actual business value it delivers to Intel.
The Business Value Index (BVI) methodology helps to prioritize investment options, make data-
driven decisions, and monitor progress. It encompasses business value, IT efficiency value, and
financial criteria. Business value measures the impact of a project on our business strategy and
priorities. IT efficiency value gauges how well the investment will use or enhance our existing
infrastructure. The financial criterion measures the financial attractiveness of the investment,
including time to return investment, cost/benefit ratio, and net present value (NPV) of a project.
BVI complements analysis tools that measure return on investment (ROI). Using the BVI
methodology, Intel's decision makers evaluate proposed IT investments based on potential business
value, impact on IT efficiency, and financial attractiveness. Our decision makers also value early
stage investments-managed as IT strategic options—using BVI.
Table of Contents
Introduction............................................................................................................................................2
Background ...........................................................................................................................................3
What is the Business Value Index?.......................................................................................................3
How is the Business Value Index Used? ..............................................................................................4
Criteria and weightings .................................................................................................................................4
Ongoing assessment process .......................................................................................................................6
Results...................................................................................................................................................6
BVI adoption: Example ................................................................................................................................7
Conclusion.............................................................................................................................................7
2
Background infrastructure. The Intel IT Business Value Index, shown in
Figure 1, provides a way to conduct a relative comparison
of these different IT initiatives to facilitate investment
According to the META Group, more than 70 percent of IT
decisions that bring the most value to Intel and IT.
organizations are still perceived as cost centers rather than
value centers. Managing the real and perceived business BVI is a composite index of factors that impact the value of
value of IT is thus very difficult. an IT investment. It evaluates IT investments along three
vectors: IT business value (that is, impact to Intel's
With tight IT budgets, an effective and strategic way of
business), impact to IT efficiency, and the financial
managing IT investments becomes more critical for the
attractiveness of an investment. All three factors use a
success of IT organizations. Faced with this challenge,
predetermined set of defining criteria that includes
Intel IT developed the BVI methodology, a new approach to
customer need, business and technical risks, strategic fit,
identify and evaluate potential benefits from making
revenue potential, level of required investment, the
investments. BVI evaluates factors beyond the traditional
innovation and learning generated, and other factors. Each
cost framework. This approach helps identify the potential
factor's criteria are weighted according to the ongoing
strategic value of an initiative and effectively communicate
business strategy and business environment—changes in
it to our executive management.
business strategy could change how criteria are weighted
for different factors.
What is the Business
The predefined criteria include, but are not limited to:
Value Index?
Customer need
Some IT projects provide indirect benefits to a company,
Business and technical risks
such as improving IT efficiency through optimized wide
area network capacity while also delivering a new IT Strategic fit
business capability to employees at a reduced cost. Other
Revenue potential
projects deliver direct benefits to a company by improving
throughput, enhancing productivity, and increasing Level of required investment
revenues. These projects deliver business value to the
Amount of innovation and learning generated
corporation but have no direct impact on the IT
W
in
-W
in
Improved IT Improved
Creates
Efficiency with Business Value
+ LOB/user
resistance
no Business AND
Value penalty IT Efficiency
Improved
Business Value
Necessary, but with no or
IT Efficiency 0 Failure
low value limited IT
Efficiency
+
penalty
0 Financial
Requires Attractiveness
- Failure Failure incremental IT
budget
-
- 0 +
Business Value
3
Table 1. Sample Assessment Criteria and Scoring
Criteria Weight 0 1 2 3
4
W
in
+ -W
Invest #2
in
Invest #1
Invest #4
IT Efficiency
Invest #5
0 Invest #3
Invest #6
Invest #7
-
- 0
Business Value
+
Concentric circles identify projects with similar total BVI the points lost. The matrix differentiates how the
and IT efficiency index (ITI) scores. In Figure 2, for investments add value in different ways. Higher values in
example, although investments 1 and 6 are on the same each section are shaded green or orange to visually depict
concentric circle, investment 1 is stronger in IEI, and the strengths and weaknesses of each project. The control
investment 6 is stronger in BVI. The two investments have values are shown at the bottom of the matrix.
similar scores, but important differences exist. For that
This level of analysis—combined with knowledge of the
reason, business strategy and current priorities should
group's current business strategy and environment—
guide the final prioritization of these projects, not solely the
guides prioritization of investments. Differences in parts of
information on the chart.
the business or changes in business strategy can lead a
Figure 3 shows a Project Comparison Matrix, which team to adjust the weighting of different factors for
compares investments on a factor-by-factor basis. It shows analytical purposes.
the points accrued by each project in each factor minus
5
Ongoing assessment process Results
An ongoing Strategic Portfolio Management process
continuously manages a team's investments, ensuring that BVI introduced a methodical, systematic approach to
investments are closely aligned with Intel IT's business investment prioritization that supports data-driven
strategies and priorities, and that IT resources are decisions. Building on the BVI philosophy, we are
effectively utilized. implementing a strategic portfolio management framework
that constitutes an integrated approach to investment
The Strategic Portfolio Management process is a closed-
decision-making and aims to identify and proactively
loop process using the BVI tool. The process starts with
manage a balanced investment portfolio mix. The
understanding IT's business strategies and then proposing
framework encompasses common evaluation criteria (that
projects to support those strategies. We access, prioritize,
is, BVI), investment categories and asset class definition,
and rank proposals using BVI. Once the investment
and visualization metrics.
decisions are made, we commit resources based on the
results of BVI and other qualitative data. The team builds BVI has assisted in decision-making activities over a wide
monitors and indicators that track success at various variety of IT projects. For example, our Distributed Systems
stages of the project lifecycle. Management (DSM) team, People Systems group, IT
Innovation organization, Customer Services group, and
We re-compute BVI on a regular basis to monitor the
Global Infrastructure teams are using this tool to prioritize
change in business value over time for the investments.
their project portfolios. We are using this approach to
Investment priorities can be adjusted based on the
prioritize our IT Research and Development portfolio.
indicators and the BVI results. We track the actual results
and benefits of the investment and measure them against An example of a successful initiative prioritized through BVI
the desired business results to provide feedback to the is our Content Distribution System project, a peer-to-peer
management process. This model's strength is that it middleware services and knowledge management system.
enables continuous alignment between the IT investment Using BVI, we prioritized the proof of concept (POC) for
portfolio and the dynamic business strategies and priorities. this project and gave it the go-ahead for development.
Actual results are measured against expectations set at the Following the successful POC, this project has now
beginning of the investment. The model also enables data- emerged as a potential next-generation technology for IT.
driven decisions that may result in canceling projects or
initiatives that fall short of expectations or no longer map to Another example is our Electronic Content Distribution
business priorities. System (eCDS) project. We intercepted the development of
eCDS before it was integrated into SKOOOL, a national
Compute BVI’s;
re-prioritize Strategic Portfolio Assess benefits,
portfolio Management costs, risks;
compute BVI
Make Prioritize
Monitor
Investments, proposals,
through
establish metrics rank BVI’s
reviews
(such as IT BV Program)
6
educational portal in Ireland. The preliminary BVI
Conclusion
evaluation proved accurate, resulting in a successful
implementation. In parallel with SKOOOL, eCDS has also
BVI provides a common language and framework for
been integrated internally into an e-learning site, and
discussing IT investments, assessing business value and IT
externally at the University of Reading, as part of a pan-
efficiency contribution based on common criteria, and
European, e-learning educational initiative.
prioritizing diverse investments based on environment and
BVI adoption: Example IT strategy. The BVI process enables continued and
The Telecom and Call Center Services (TCCS) group in proactive alignment of the IT project portfolio with corporate
our IT Global Infrastructure organization recently adopted and IT business strategies.
BVI into their business process. TCCS is responsible for Intel IT applies BVI to a variety of IT projects, which are
infrastructure projects funded by IT and for pay-per-view then used by the ITBV metrics program. BVI creates an
projects funded directly by IT customers. The group was initial composite index to help gauge likely business
looking for a method to help prioritize these diverse benefits. The metrics program then looks more closely at
projects and make the right investment decisions. In light of the actual value delivered by a given project and assigns a
the recent economic environment, prioritization became an real dollar value to the deliverables.
even more important process in business management.
TCCS turned to BVI as a potential tool to help solve their BVI is a decision support tool for IT investment decisions. It
prioritization dilemmas. should not, however, be used as the only tool or factor in
the decision making process. A thorough IT investment
A group composed of TCCS managers and project decision should be made based on the BVI results, the
managers studied the BVI tool and started a pilot effort that business drivers for different initiatives, the dependencies
evaluated whether BVI would fit their business between projects (both within the group and between other
requirements. The group selected a set of current and groups), the impact to internal and external customers, the
potential future projects for the pilot and used the BVI tool amount of investment, and other relevant business or
to conduct assessments. environmental factors.
7
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